The next few weeks are likely to decide President-General Pervez Musharraf's fate. The national and international reaction to the state of emergency Musharraf imposed on 3 November 2007 has forced him into a series of unwise but perhaps inevitable decisions, many of which he would have preferred to avoid. These decisions have increasingly distanced Musharraf from many of his erstwhile supporters at home and abroad and have left him looking increasingly isolated and embattled. Even the United States, which places such high value on Musharraf that it has even turned a blind eye to Pakistan's nuclear-proliferation activities, is beginning to turn on him.
Perhaps the best way to think of Musharraf's position is to liken it to man pushed by his own hand and the unfolding of events ever further along a plank. He is now undoubtedly isolated and under the greatest pressure of his period of military rule; the question is whether the end of the plank is a drop into the abyss or whether it will deliver Musharraf safely onto the other bank. The president-general still appears to expect the latter.
In the labyrinth
Shaun Gregory is professor in the department of peace studies at the University of Bradford, northern England, and head of the Pakistan Security Research Unit there. His book Pakistan: Securing the Insecure State will be published by Routledge in 2008
Also by Shaun Gregory in openDemocracy:
"Pakistan on edge" (25 September 2006)
"Pakistan: farewell to democracy" (29 October 2007)Musharraf's game-plan is now clear. He has agreed - under pressure from Washington - to hold parliamentary elections before 9 January 2008. At present most of his senior political opponents are in jail, under house arrest, or in exile. He has the judiciary stitched up with new appointments, including a new chief justice (Abdul Hameed Dogar), and a compliant electoral commission. When the incumbent parliament expired on 15 November he appointed a caretaker government led by Mohammadmian Soomro, outgoing chairman of Pakistan's senate and a leading member of Musharraf's toadying Quaid-e-Azam (the Pakistan Muslim League / PML-Q, or "king's party").
He has used security fears - which are genuine, but hardly novel or unexpected - to ban political gatherings, street protests, and rallies. He also retains tight control over the electronic media, though there has been an easing of restrictions on some of the less troublesome independent TV companies (after the implications of a resumption of overly-critical commentary was made clear to them).
From this point of departure Musharraf, is now intending to move in under sixty days to an election he can sell as a "transition to democracy" - and throwing down a challenge to the international community, above all the United States, to go along with the charade. Musharraf has been vociferous over the past few weeks in English-language speeches and statements repeating the arguments Pakistan's dictators have always made: that the survival of Pakistan comes before democracy, that military rulers are democrats, and that the world should not expect levels of democracy in Pakistan which are enjoyed in the west. Kafka would be proud.
The road between now and the election is going to be very bumpy for Musharraf. His detention and repression of political opposition are driving his democratic opponents closer together around Benazir Bhutto and two developments are of particular note. On 7 November, Bhutto was elected chairperson of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD), an umbrella agreement signed in London in May 2006 which was originally intended to build a united democratic opposition to Musharraf's rule (though by autumn 2006 it had become sidelined by differences between Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif). The ARD could become the vehicle for the unification of political opposition once more; to encourage this Bhutto took the step of publicly reaching out to Sharif, presently in exile in Saudi Arabia.
A zero-sum game
But just as Musharraf's strategy is surrounded by uncertainties, it would equally be wrong to assume that a triumphant procession to democracy is now about to unfold. The political opposition - and their backers in the judiciary, civil society and the media - face the prospect of having to organise while their leaderships are detained or exiled, their parties unable to mobilise effectively, and their supporters unable to take to the streets. They will thus find it extremely difficult to build the political momentum to unseat Musharraf through the one dynamic which could achieve that: large-scale street-protests. Musharraf for his part can give ground in some areas, but he will be resolutely determined to keep large crowds off the streets of Pakistan's major cities.
Also in openDemocracyon Pakistan's accelerating crisis:
Paul Rogers, "Pakistan signals red" (5 July 2007 )
Maruf Khwaja, "The war for Pakistan" (24 July 2007)
Ayesha Siddiqa, "Pakistan: the power of the gun" (7 November 2007)
Irfan Husain, "Pervez Musharraf's desperate gamble" (5 November 2007)
Salman Raja, "Pakistan: inside the storm" (9 November 2007)
Irfan Husain, "Pakistan's multi-faceted crisis" (12 November 2007)
Paul Rogers, "A Pakistani dilemma" (15 November 2007)
Musharraf will also be betting on political differences opening up between the political parties, particularly as the outcome of the ARD's activity and the new dispensation of power the body proposes becomes codified. A well-known joke in Pakistan is instructive on this point. A Pakistani dies and goes to hell. He is shown around hell by a devil and learns that in hell each nation has its own fiery pit so that everyone can spend eternal damnation with his or her compatriots. Each fiery pit is guarded by devils with pitchforks that drive back down into the pit anyone seeking to escape. When the man reaches the Pakistani pit, his own destiny, he asks why no devils seem to be guarding the pit. "There is no need for guards", replies the devil "because any Pakistani who tries to escape is always pulled back down by the others".
The rueful insight at the heart of this joke is that in Pakistan the politics of patronage is a zero-sum game and any political deal between the main protagonists, Bhutto and Sharif (even if this proves possible) will likely come apart at the seams as the spoils heave into view and the likely winners and losers become clearer. Musharraf will thus be hoping to ease restrictions as the elections approach by just enough to lend the process a veneer of legitimacy, while retaining enough constraints to undermine and divide the political fortunes of his opponents; Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, will work overtime to the latter end.
Musharraf then hopes to emerge from the election in a transformed position in a way that confounds his adversaries. He will have made the transition to a civilian presidency; retained strong supporters in control of the army; divided and weakened his political opponents through their depressed electoral showing and thus pushed into making deals with him; and secured the continued backing of the US administration, thus in turn able to sell the Musharraf-led order to a sceptical congress.
Washington's key
The worry for Musharraf is that the United States administration will continue to back him only as long as it believes that he is going to get through this period of turbulence and reach the relatively stability of that other bank after the elections. The decision to impose emergency rule on 3 November and the nature and pace of events since then has persuaded many in Washington, if not yet in the Oval Office, that he cannot deliver future stability, a perception reinforced by Benazir Bhutto's recent assertions that she will no longer countenance working with Musharraf in a future power-sharing deal.
Bhutto has rather pointedly personalised her remarks in ruling out collaboration with Musharraf, but she has not excluded working with the military, and therein lies the greatest danger for Pakistan's president-general. Circumstances are increasingly conspiring to position Musharraf personally as the obstacle to progress rather than its instrument. Were Musharraf suddenly out of the way - through assassination, coup, or dismissal - the situation would undoubtedly ease, and create the possibility of a new political opening. The prospect of a deal between Bhutto and the military would be within reach; and a new presidency and the recalibration of political powers would offer a genuinely positive step in the direction of democracy.
The combination of international pressures focused on Musharraf is becoming extraordinary. Pakistan faces suspension from the Commonwealth on 22 November; pressure from Britain, the European Union, and the United Nations is growing; and, above all, Musharraf's actions are embarrassing the George W Bush administration and putting the American media spotlight on the US-Pakistan relationship (thus shining light into some very murky corners). This situation cannot continue without some form of catharsis or resolution. Musharraf has very little time left, if any, to demonstrate to Washington that he can lead Pakistan safely through the tempest. The next few weeks are likely to decide the issue, one way or the other, for the Bush administration in particular. If Washington decides to pull the plug on Musharraf his demise will be swift.